I had been living with Matt and Nani for just over 6 months. My ex and I were still “friends” but neither of us had met anyone else so after about 3 months of being single, we started sleeping together again on occasion. He got protective when my lab partner from school, who was 42 and totally not my type by the way, started border-line stalking me. Notes on my car, constant calls, voicemails about how he had been dreaming of me and woke up with the biggest hard on he’d ever had, voicemails that he had been driving all over town thinking of me and that all the street signs confirmed we were meant to be together like Martha Way and Martha St. Then the clincher, the message when he said, “I’m not gonna let you go, I believe in us, I believe, do you Martha, do you?” Um, us?? WTF! My ex wanted to kill him. See what a great guy my ex was, seriously, I could always count on him to help me. I called the stalker back with Nani there to hold my hand because I’m such a freaking baby. Fortunately I got his voicemail so I left him a message, “Don’t ever contact me again. Don’t talk to me at school, don’t call me, and don’t leave any notes on my car or I’m calling the police”. He called two more times but I decided to wait it out. Everyone was worried but the stalker finally stopped contacting me, whew!
The stalker scare kind of heated things back up with my ex so we started seeing each other more regularly again but we weren’t officially back together and I was still living with Matt and Nani. I accepted a new job that summer and ended up with the 4 th of July weekend off before starting the new one. A girl that I formerly worked with invited me to go to Ashland , her hometown, for the holiday weekend. I wanted to go but my ex didn’t want me to, even though he was going to be out of town himself. I was annoyed and announced that I was going anyway, which only further annoyed him of course. Ick, the petty bickering between us had returned. The kind that makes you roll your eyes, sigh, and realize, “ ----- , this is never going to work”.
Christina and I drove down Friday morning and planned to return Monday night because we both had to work Tuesday morning. The weather was gorgeous and I hadn’t done a girl weekend in a long time. We walked all over, shopped, stopped for a beer at the brewery to cool down, and then went home to freshen up before heading back out for a late dinner at Tabu. After dinner we wound up at Martino’s for drinks. We snagged a coveted table for two on the outdoor balcony, the last one left…it seemed like the night was definitely going our way. The minute we sat down, a group of older guys offered to get us drinks. We accepted which turned out to be a a mistake because they took our acquiescence as an invitation and kind of swarmed our little table, ugh. They claimed to be doctors in town for some golf thing but they almost bored us to ----- death with all their talk about themselves and their adventures. Christina and I exchanged knowing looks of “How do we get rid of these guys already??”.
I noticed a group of guys who looked more our age at a large table on the other side of the balcony. My gaze immediately gravitated to the tall, slim, Jude Law look-a-like who was sipping scotch and smoking a cigarette. He was gorgeous, in fact, I was quite certain he was the best-looking guy I’d ever seen. I gave Christina a look that said, “I have to tell you something”. She caught my eye and gave me the look of question. I held her gaze and then looked pointedly at the group of guys behind her. She turned her head to follow my gaze, then turned back and gave me the look that says, “I’ll take care of this”. I smiled her. It’s amazing how much women can communicate with one another without ever even speaking. You might think the “doctors” caught on, but they were too self-absorbed to notice and the whole exchange happened in less than 10 seconds.
Christina made some announcement about needing to spend some quality time with her girl. It was their turn to exchange glances, the kind where they were wondering if they were getting the boot. We confirmed by smiling innocently, thanking them for the drinks, and telling them to enjoy the rest of their weekend. As soon as they left I asked Christina if she knew the guy I was looking at. She did not. We continued to sip our drinks and I made eye contact with him but then shyly looked away. His friend got up to order another drink and he had to pass directly by our table to get to the bar. We needed a plan - fast…I hurriedly told Christina that his friend was coming by and that I needed her to talk to him so that we could have a reason to talk to Jude Law. She nodded but he had already passed by. Rats! Fortunately, as he was walking back by with his drink in hand, Christina reached out and grabbed his arm.
I was excited that she was brave enough to talk to him but I was also nervous that Jude Law wouldn’t be interested. She casually said, “Hey, who’s your friend in the gray sweatshirt over there?” He looked over at Jude Law who was now looking back at us. Christina confirmed that he was looking at the right guy while I pretended to be busy checking out the trim on the building and sipped my drink. His friend walked over to Jude Law and said, “Hey, those girls want to talk to us.” He returned with Jude Law in tow and we all introduced ourselves. They invited us to join them at their table and of course, we agreed. I could feel the doctors watching us as we relocated but I didn’t care.
I happily settled into the seat on Jude Law’s right and we began talking. We were the same age and both currently attending community college with plans to transfer to PSU. He was planning to move to Portland in about 6 months to attend PSU’s engineering program. While I liked him more by the minute, I couldn’t tell if he liked me back yet or not. About an hour later, Christina and I excused ourselves to use the restroom and while we were standing in line I pouted to her that I wasn’t sure he was interested. She said, “I’m sorry honey, I can’t quite tell either”. Now you know girls, they always make excuses and rationalize everything to make each other feel better, especially when it’s about men, so while she was obligated to do the girly, “Everything is OK” routine, it really meant, “Yeah, I don’t think he’s interested either”. Immediately after she said that, Jude Law walked right past, with barely a glance in our direction as he entered the men’s room. I wondered if he had heard our conversation on his way by. Christina and I simultaneously exchanged the wide-eyed, “oh- ----- , how embarrassing” look. I said, “OK, I guess he’s officially not interested, that sucks!” Christina looked at me in pity but of course knew better than to agree with me so she said nothing.
I must be a glutton for punishment because after using the restroom I told her I wanted to go back out there and give it one last try before calling it a night. She was a good sport so she agreed it was worth a shot. When we returned to the balcony Jude Law was leaning against the railing with both arms outstretched on either side of him. He looked amazing…6’3”, lean, cut, perfect smile…I almost stopped dead in my tracks just to look. Then, I have no idea what possessed me to be so brazen next. Maybe it was because I knew I’d never see him again, maybe it was because I was more attracted to him than I had ever been to any other guy in my life, or maybe it was the drinks, who knows. But I walked right up to him and stood in the little nook created between his body and his outstretched left arm. He looked down at me and raised his brows slightly in curiosity. I looked up at him openly but said nothing. He said, “You’re standing really close to me”. I felt my eyes widen in surprise; did that mean he was unhappy about me standing close to him, did it mean that he definitely wasn’t interested? I swallowed hard and pushed ahead, it was now or never, in a quiet, kind of hesitant voice I said, “Yeah…I think you’re cute”. His eyes softened, he said he thought I was cute too, wrapped his arm around me and gave my side a little squeeze. Whew!
Christina and I decided to go dancing and he agreed to come despite the fact that his friends were doing something else. We held hands on the walk to the club and ordered another round when we arrived. Christina knew the bartender so our drinks were free but Jude Law had to pay for his scotch. We all hit the dance floor and while I tried to include Christina because I didn’t want her to be bored, me and Jude Law were too infatuated with each other to be good companions. Christina later said that it seemed like there was a spotlight shining on him and me the entire night and that we looked amazing together. He put our drinks aside, pulled me close on the dance floor and kissed me for the first time. He asked if we could go outside to talk where it was quiet. I followed him out. He explained that he liked me a lot and didn’t want us to drink any more for the night so that we could get to know each other better. I agreed and we returned to the dance floor holding hands instead of drinks.
Christina turned out to be a great wing-woman. As the club was getting ready to close, he asked if I wanted to go home with him. I stood there in indecision for a moment; I had never had a one-night stand. I thought for a moment, looked up at him and then decided in about half a second that I would. We found Christina and she told him where we were staying so he could bring me home the following day. She looked at him suspiciously and said she had to protect her girl. She demanded that he give her his cell number and she called it on the spot to make sure it was legit. It was. I laughed at how protective she was but appreciated her thoughtfulness.
His house was about 2 miles from the club so he offered to call a cab but I opted to walk since it was a nice night and I enjoyed his company. He bent over, lifted the hem of my right pant leg to examine my shoes (Wedge sandals with sparkly crystal butterflies, super-cute!) and asked if I was sure I could make it that far in the shoes I was wearing. I assured him that I could. We held hands and talked the whole way. I told him he almost scared me off with that “You’re standing really close to me” line and that I hadn’t been sure he was interested. He laughed and said he was a little shy and had just assumed I was interested in his friend (the one Christina had grabbed by the arm) because all the girls loved that guy.
By the time we arrived at his place, I really wasn’t even nervous, I decided that I’d just live in the moment, enjoy it for what it was, and if it was meant to be more then it would be. We stayed up the entire night, talking, kissing, and laughing. Throughout all the conversation and into the next morning, we never got dressed; we just enjoyed each other’s company, completely nude except for my sparkly, pink chandelier earrings. I had fun with him, it was easy, and we both somehow felt like we’d known each other forever already.
The next morning his friend called to see what time they were going rock climbing. We were laying in bed, his left arm around me, wrapped in nothing but the top sheet. He talked into the phone while he looked at me smiling, “I don’t know if I want to go now, I met someone amazing last night…and she’s laying next to me right now”. I almost died of embarrassment that his friend knew I had gone home with him on the first night!! He said he’d call the guy back in a bit to let him know if he was going. He told me he’d rather spend the day with me, but I didn’t want him to have to cancel his plans for me so I told him he should go and that we could get together later if he wanted. But of course even as I said it, a part of me wondered if I’d see him again. I gave him my number and he said he’d call when he got done climbing. I was hoping he actually would.
He dropped me off at Christina’s place and I immediately woke her up to fill her in on all the details. We went to Morning Glory for breakfast and coffee and, since Ashland was her hometown, of course we ran into more people she knew. She promptly asked the waiter if he knew Jude Law and he said, “Rock climber, snow-boarder?” We looked at each other in excitement, partially because he knew him and partially because the description was so damn sexy! We looked back at him and nodded enthusiastically in unison. He said, “Oh yeah, nice guy, his mom just died recently…I think he’s been having a rough time with it”. We both nodded, he had told me the night before about his mom passing.
Later that afternoon we were at Christina’s mom’s place for a BBQ and Christina kept telling everyone that I had met someone amazing. My cheeks heated a bit; everyone wanted to know the details. I was so giddy when I told them about him that I was only a little embarrassed by then to admit I had gone home with him the night before. I was surprised that no one seemed judgmental about it and everyone was hoping he’d call me like he said he would. Sure enough, while we were still there he called. He wanted to get together again and I told him that Christina and I wanted to go swimming. He agreed to meet us at the park in an hour.
Although I had been completely naked with him mere hours prior, I was suddenly self-conscious about the idea of wearing a bikini in front of him. He wrapped me in his arms the second he spotted me walking across the grass and my worries were forgotten. We basked in the sun, talked, kissed, and looked at each other with the kind of extra long eye contact that’s only socially permissible between lovers. I laid my head on his lean stomach as we talked and he casually draped his left arm over my breasts to rest his hand on my tummy. He looked down at my feet and said, “How did you get your toes like that?” Christina turned to look from her towel where she was sunbathing and laughed at his question. He was referring to my French pedicure and I explained that they were painted that way. Boys…too funny!
A few hours later, he asked if I’d go to dinner with him and his friends and then stay with him again for the night. I was torn because I felt bad about abandoning Christina but she assured me that she had plenty of people to hang out with and catch up with. She graciously encouraged me to go with him and I readily accepted. After dinner, we went for a long walk, just the two of us, me bundled up in one of his sweatshirts. We stood in front of his house at the end and talked about everything under the sun: religion, life, love, etc. We couldn’t tear our eyes away from each other. He said he thought it was adorable that my ears poke out of my hair when it’s down and that he’d never met anyone who had such perfect eyebrows.
We went inside and continued talking. It was as if we both already knew we were wildly attracted to one another but now we needed to find out if our views on life were compatible. He told me more about his mom and his struggle to get over the sadness caused by her death. We talked about our exes, why the relationships failed, what we needed to be happy, and what we were looking for in the future. I knew already that I could easily love him but I didn’t want to let myself go that far yet. I was straddling him on the couch as we talked and he had his arms draped loosely around my hips. I asked him what his “type” was. He said, “I like dark hair, dark eyes…” he looked away sheepishly, then looked back and said, “I like big butts”. He gave my butt a little squeeze when he said it and I knew he was being genuine so I laughed and explained that he was exactly my type too.
The sex was different that night, more intimate after all the talking and connecting. It had been amazing the first night and I had felt cared for then but by the second night, we had progressed into more of a relationship with both of us knowing we’d keep seeing each other even after I returned to Portland . It was one of those things that just seems to naturally happen; we didn’t have to discuss whether we were officially “dating” or boyfriend-girlfriend, rather we just were, it was assumed. We were laying in his bed talking and he said, “You have the softest skin I’ve ever felt”. I laughed and said, “It’s all that Victoria ’s Secret lotion!” He looked away, then looked back at me and said, “Noooo…you’re even softer down there”. I blushed a bit as I smiled in pleasure. While I do regularly get the “soft skin” compliment, even from women, that particular one was new to me.
The rest of the weekend went by too quickly for both of us and we savored our last day together. When Christina called to say she was on her way to pick me up we were both disappointed even though we already knew I had to go. He said that maybe he could come up to visit in a couple of weeks and I suddenly realized it was time to move out on my own. Living with Matt and Nani was easy and fun but staying there was like a transition period in my life. It allowed me to float a bit while I tried to figure out what direction I wanted to go, and in the back of my mind, I knew it allowed me to easily get back together with my ex if I chose to. But suddenly I knew that the time had come for me to move out on my own and officially end all possibilities of reconciliation with my ex.
Moving was symbolic of a new beginning; I was finally ready to let go of the past and move forward. The day after I got back, I told my ex that I had met someone in Ashland . He said that somehow he had known I was going to and that he had actually met someone else over the weekend too. I looked at 15 apartments in a week and finally found “the one”. Funny now, looking back, how parallel the apartment hunt was in comparison to my current dating situation. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for but I knew I’d know it when I saw it. I had a vision in my mind of what the end result would look like and when I walked into the 15 th place, I knew I was home. I put a deposit on it that day and moved in a week later.
I cleaned, painted, and decorated the entire apartment in 3 days. Every single one of my friends and both of my sisters lent a helping hand to contribute towards my vision. I had never really lived alone but I knew that I was finally ready to take care of myself without the help of my parents or a boyfriend. Even the painting seemed symbolic. I had never painted a place anything but white but choosing colors for the first time in my life made me feel like I was actually living in color. My newfound independence was both exciting and peaceful because while Jude Law had definitely been the catalyst for me striking out on my own, I knew that this self-sufficiency thing was going to be a permanent change whether the relationship with him worked out or not.
We exchanged several emails and talked on the phone every few days. I confessed one night that I was sad because I was already starting to forget what he looked like; it seemed like I could only remember things in detail or pieces but not the whole. I remembered the distinct line on the underside of his nose, I remembered his hands, I could picture his smile, but I couldn’t seem to visualize his whole face anymore. He said he had been feeling the same but hadn’t wanted to admit it. When the weekend he was coming to visit finally arrived 2 weeks later, I was excited but I also began to feel a little self-conscious about him seeing my apartment. I thought, what if he doesn’t love it? I had put so much of myself into it and it was my first real forum for personal expression so if he didn’t like it, wouldn’t that mean that he didn’t like me? I wondered if we’d have the same connection outside the bubble of Ashland and back in the real world.
I walked down to meet him when he called to say he was close. When his truck came around the corner in my complex, I smiled. He pulled up next to me, stuck his head out the window and smiled while I leaned over to kiss him. He took one look around my apartment when he stepped in the door and said, “I love it”. We spent the entire time completely absorbed with each other. It’s funny how you can meet someone and during the time you spend together it seems like the rest of the world just falls away and the two of you are the only ones that exist. Apparently the “bubble” wasn’t Ashland , it was us.
I joined him and his friends the following weekend for a camping trip at Squaw Lake . We were so enamored that we couldn’t stop looking at each other and smiling. We swam, drank coffee together in the mornings, read our books in the afternoon, and abandoned ourselves sexually at night. He was the most sensual guy I’d ever been with. The walk back to the car was several miles and we started talking about love on the way. I was telling him that I wasn’t sure that love exists in the sort of vacuum that people normally associate it with. I said, “I mean isn’t the feeling you have towards people when you are compassionate, connected, kind, sharing an experience, etc, love? Even if it doesn’t mean that you are necessarily in love with that person, or that the feeling is romantic, the dynamic is love”. He agreed and said that he loved me for the first time.
The summer flew by in a blur of love, romance, long weekend trips, and long phone calls. He asked if I wanted to try rock climbing with him at his favorite outdoor spot by Ashland , “If you trust me with your life that is”. I said I did so we went. He gave me a quick tutorial on how to tie the figure-eight knot and belay. He climbed first while I belayed and watched, then it was my turn. He had picked an intermediate face to climb so I stepped to the wall and found my footing. I started climbing and he started encouraging and complimenting me. About a third of the way up he said, “You’re a natural at this!” Half way up I kind of got stuck. I couldn’t seem to find a decent hand grab to get to the next step. I took a look around. Have I ever mentioned that I like to be up high? You should’ve seen the view from the mountain we were on, especially since I was half way up a rock, overlooking all the treetops. It was pure blue sky and totally gorgeous.
He hollered up, “I can’t believe you’ve made it that far, that’s farther than any of the other girls we’ve ever brought up here! You’re doing awesome, I’m soooo proud of you right now!!” . I continued to try to find the right foothold and spot for my right hand so I could step up higher. He shouted up, “You don’t have to keep trying, you can quit if you’re tired”. Ahem, quit?? I looked down at him, “You must not know me very well, I’m no quitter. I’ll be done when I make it to the top or I fall off, but I’m not quitting”. He went back to offering encouragement. There was another couple there that we didn’t know but they started offering encouragement too. I kept trying out hand holds and finally, drum roll please, I got the hold I needed and made it past that tough spot. Jude Law and the couple immediately started cheering for me, “Whoooooo!” I made it to the top in nothing flat after that and got to repel back down. As soon as my feet touched, he came running towards me, grabbed me up in his arms, and said, “I can’t believe you made it all the way up there! You’re amazing!....and I’m so turned on!”
We only climbed for a bit longer after that. I was surprised at how tired my arms were, specifically my forearms. We showered together, as we always did, and took turns lathering each other up to wash off the grime. As soon as we finished having sex, he smiled sheepishly and said, “I already want you again” so it turned out to be an extra-extra long shower that afternoon…
I put on the same pink tube top I had been wearing the night I met him and he took me back to Martino’s. He ordered a bottle of wine while we waited for dinner and then surprised me with tickets to see a play at the Shakespeare Festival afterwards. After the play we decided to sleep outside in his backyard. We laid out blankets, crawled in, and looked at the stars together. I had never been so in love.
Being with Jude Law proved to be a time of sexual awakening in my life. I was more attracted to him than I had been to anyone previously. Each weekend we spent together, it seemed like he drew me more and more out of my shell sexually, although prior to that, I didn’t even realize that I was a little shy about it. Or maybe it was more that I had been a little self-conscious, but with him, I was finally comfortable just being completely in the moment and abandoning myself to the pleasure. One night we were talking and he asked if there was anything I wanted to try. I told him I was more satisfied with our sex life than I had ever been, but if I could “try something”, I wished at times that there could be 2 of him. Remember when Pam Anderson said she fantasized about 2 Tommy Lees? I didn’t get it when she said it, but after being with Jude Law, I totally understood. He was soooo amazing that I sometimes fantasized about 2 of him…
We stayed a weekend at a romantic bed and breakfast on the coast. Our room had an oversized, freestanding claw foot bath tub and I had brought Victoria ’s Secret goodies. We walked the beach every day, talked, looked for seashells and starfish, and laid in the sand while he read me Rumi poetry. We picked a new restaurant each night for seafood dinner and wine and always sat next to each other instead of across from each other so that we could cuddle and kiss easily. Both nights, we curled up in front of the fireplace with more wine while we read our books together. I’m certain we had more orgasms in one weekend than most people have in a month.
I’ll always have a soft spot for everything Ashland because of Jude Law, but unfortunately, things started to unravel about 5 months into the relationship due to the distance, my overloaded schedule, and his lack of direction with school and work. He felt like I wasn’t putting in enough time because I could no longer drive to Ashland regularly to see him. I felt like he had let me down because it became apparent that he had no plans to move to Portland in the near future, to pursue his education, or even to hold down steady work. I had just been promoted at work and was going to school full time while he was battling alcoholism and his depression about his mother’s death. It seemed like I was completely absorbed in an upward spiral of promotions, self-discovery, learning, and adventure, while he was at the opposite end of the continuum downward spiraling in the wake of his mother’s death, and depression-induced alcoholism. We each became wrapped up in our own lives and had less time to dedicate to each other. The relationship dynamic changed as a result of our emotional and geographic distance, and as it did, I became less interested in him romantically and sexually. Looking back, it’s easy to see that I could have been more compassionate, but at the time, I felt like I was spread too thin and I resented the feeling that he was pulling me down in a sense, holding me back, and making demands on my time. We drifted.
Our relationship deteriorated even more quickly after I received another promotion and my job became even more demanding. We decided to spend New Year’s Eve apart. He stayed in Ashland to party with his friends while I went out with my friends in Portland . After dinner at Bluehour, I went with Mary and Amy to the E-Room, a lesbian club, for dancing. We tipped “mom” when we walked in and then ordered a round of Hello Kitties. Amy watched our stuff while Mary and I danced. Mary said, “Hey, didn’t that girl come into our work last week?” I looked and said, “Oh yeah, she did, her name’s Alexa, I talked to her about her skin”. Mary caught her eye and said hi. Alexa said hi to her and then spotted me. Her eyes widened and she said, “Oh hey, you’re the manager, daaaaaaaaaaamn, you’re gay?” I said, “Nooo, I’m not, but my friends are so I come here to dance with them”. She said, “Oh damn, you’re fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!” I laughed and she said, “Do you wanna dance with me?” I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Sure, as long as you know I’m straight and you’re alright with that”.
Alexa kept buying me more drinks and by the end of the night she seemed to be getting a bit aggressive in her advances despite my constant “I’m straight” reminders. I finally ditched her and went back to hang out with Mary and Amy but she tracked me down and leaned over our table in the same aggressive stance a man would use. I whispered, “Mary! What the ----- am I supposed to do with this girl? She won’t get the hint and she’s even more aggressive than a guy!!” Mary grabbed my hand and clasped it in hers. Whew, I thought, Ok, she’ll think I’m with Mary and get the hint. Alexa stood straight back up, pointed at our hands and said, “Are you two……?” We just looked at her coyly and shrugged our shoulders without confirming or denying. Bad idea. Ok, so just for the record, when one is trying to ditch an aggressive lesbian, one should not pretend to maybe be in a lesbian relationship with another woman!! Doh!!
When I got home at 3am, I realized that I hadn’t even missed Jude Law that night. I suddenly knew that while the relationship had been intensely good, it had served its purpose: I had found myself. I hadn’t even known that I had felt a bit lost up until that point but suddenly my life had clarity and purpose like it had never had before because it existed independent of my relationships with men. No, that didn’t mean that I was turning to women either, despite the fact that Alexa stopped my work every week for like 6 months after that, apparently hoping I’d change my mind and decide to be a lesbian after all, whatever.
We broke up and he got a little ugly via email. It’s interesting when people choose to get ugly during a breakup because it never has the effect they’re hoping for. They want you to be sorry you’re leaving them when in reality it only serves to confirm that you’ve made the right choice.
A couple of months later I received another email from him which was unexpected since we hadn’t communicated since the breakup. I opened it and started reading, “Martha, every morning when I wake up I realize there’s something missing in my life…” Of course I’m such an egomaniac that I was certain that the “something” he was referring to was me. I read on, “…I really miss that sunshine coffee cup that my sister gave me and my mornings just aren’t the same without it.” WTF! A coffee cup?? Seriously?? He continued to say that he’d appreciate it if I could mail it back to him and that he also thought I should send back the rock climbing shoes he had given me for Christmas. Double WTF! Send back my Christmas present?? I don’t think so dude! What kind of guy asks for a gift back?? The nerve!
I forwarded it to all of my friends and they said I should I either keep the coffee cup or smash it and mail back all the itsy-bitsy little pieces. I debated, complained, stalled, and did…nothing. I was busy, thought the whole thing was a bit ridiculous and just didn’t feel like I had the time to deal with it. About a month later, he sent another email asking for the cup back. I was incredulous, the nerve! It was a cup, get over it!, I thought. As if I was deliberately keeping it just to spite him! My friends again said I should break it and send back the pieces but I’m just not that much of a b---- so I decided to send it back but I’d be damned if I was sending back the shoes. I bubble-wrapped the f-ing mug and mailed it back to Ashland the following day. I guess I decided to send it back because I knew it really did have sentimental value for him and because I didn’t want him to view it as a connection holding the two of us together in some way. I never responded to the messages, just sent back the cup without as much as a note.
About 6 months later he called me. He said he missed me, hadn’t been able to meet anyone else like me, and that he was afraid he’d never connect with anyone else in the same way he had with me. I explained that while we’d had a great time together for a while, nothing had changed: we still lived 5 hours apart, my schedule was still overloaded, he still wasn’t planning on moving to Portland any time soon, etc. He sighed in defeat but then perked up and asked, “Well should I call you if I’m ever in Portland ?” I said, “Have you been to Portland since we broke up?” He sheepishly admitted that he had not. I told him that I hadn’t been to Ashland either so there really wasn’t any point in staying in touch. He kind of chuckled in an exasperated way and said, “Damn, why do you have to be so logical?” I laughed. We said our goodbyes; I wished him the best and hung up. He called again about 6 months after that and left a message saying I should call him if I wanted to talk. While I was no longer annoyed about the cup, I saw no purpose to continue talking since it didn’t seem like it could go anywhere so I didn’t return the call.
While the relationship didn’t end up working out and Jude Law hadn’t been “the one”, the experience changed my life profoundly. The best word I could use to sum up the experience is -inspiring. The relationship inspired me to genuine self-sufficiency and independent thinking. It allowed me to realize my own level of sexual desire and fostered awareness about my life. Before I met Jude Law, my life was all about white walls and dependent social complacence, but after knowing him, my life has been full of color. Perhaps it’s a coincidence that I experienced such meaningful life changes at the same time I was dating him, perhaps I would have ended up in the same place anyway regardless of meeting him, but either way, I’m grateful for the experience.
I do realize now though, after 2.5 years, that I was a little too hasty to break things off with him when the going got tough. The optimism of my naïve youth considered the relationship disposable on some unconscious level. I guess I had no way of knowing at the time that the relationship wouldn’t be easily replaced since, up to that point, I had been able to have any relationship I wanted. It was easy come, easy go, not to be confused with casual; rather it was just that it was easily attainable. I realize now that the type of connection we had would not be easily replaced because I didn’t meet anyone else who I was that interested in until Jake, 2 years later. In hindsight, I think he realized how special and irreplaceable the connection was before I did which was why he called a few times after we broke up. But at those times when he called, I still didn’t get it so I wasn’t receptive to his attempts at rekindling. I just assumed that I would easily meet someone to replace him in the future if I wanted to.
I realized about 8 months ago that I hadn’t really given the relationship enough of a chance, and that I hadn’t appreciated it enough to work harder to save it, so I emailed him to let him know. I had deleted his number but still had his email address memorized so I sent him a short message, an acknowledgement of sorts, to let him know that after 2 years, I finally “got” it. I didn’t hear back from him so I assumed that he had met someone else by that point. Ironically, I have a feeling that our timing will now be forever off. I sent him the message when I finally realized what I had lost, which was about a year after he realized what he’d lost. Now, he’ll probably end up responding after I’ve already met someone else and am unavailable. Interesting how life works out, but who am I to argue with the impeccable timing of the universe?
